Red Love
by Eternal Silence
Summary: When Azula is diagnosed with a life threatning disease she dosen't know what to do, except reminisce... And think about the brother she abused and how she really feels...
1. Revealing

**Disclaimer:** I do not and never will own "Avatar: the Last Air bender" and all its characters. 

**Note:** Well here's my second Avatar fic but this one's focused on Zuko and his evil little sis Azula. This chapters not that great but it'll get better next chapter. Promise. Oh yeah and there's a part where Ty Lee tells Azula she loves her. She means friend kinda love okay. There's no romance in this fic. And this fic should be about 4 or 5 chapters, the first 2 or 3 will be about Azula. Well read and review!

**Dedication:** Death's Soulmate. Cuz she's an awesome writer and person. I hope you like this and I hope you know who Ty Lee, Mai, and Azula are… If you don't know, ask in your review and I'll explain.

**Red Love **

**Chapter 1: Revealing**

Azula was furious. Never in her life had she been so sick. Never in her life had she felt so miserable, so helpless, so pathetic.

Never in her life had her desire to scream been so great.

Her head was pounding like crazy and just the slightest sound made her dizzy from the pain. Every inch of her sheet covered body felt so heavy. Azula felt as though she couldn't move, besides she felt much too weak. In her right hand she clutched a small red cup and swore in her mind that she'd throw it at the next person who'd dare speak.

Slowly the Fire Nation's princess opened her golden eyes and rolled her heavy head to the side. Though her vision was blurred, she could see her circus friend Ty Lee sitting still by her bedside. The girl's body was covered in shadow, her outline slightly illuminated by the soft candlelight to her right.

A small smile became of Ty Lee's colorless lips and Azula felt the tips of her friend's warm fingers upon her own chilled ones. Slowly, Ty Lee mouthed out the words "it'll be okay" and offered another warm smile.

Azula shut her tired eyes. A small part of her was grateful for Ty Lee. The girl had sat by her side since the moment she fell ill, always offering smiles and reassuring words. She even personally made her the warmest, most delicious chicken pig soup each day.

However, a bigger part of Azula wanted to slap Ty Lee. Because there was nothing the princess despised more than being pitied and that was all her friend was doing. It only added to the anger she was already feeling.

"Princess Azula!" A voice cried out and the Fire Nation's princess had to clench her teeth at the sudden pain. Without thinking, she hurled the cup in the direction of the voice. She gave a weak smile when a yelp reached her ears, but it immediately faded when she heard it collide with the wall.

"My apologies Your Highness." The man quickly replied and Azula imagined him bowing. "But I have discovered what disease has infected you."

Azula rolled her heavy head to her left. Her vision was slightly fuzzy but she could make out her crew's doctor standing in her doorway. With hesitant steps he made his way over to her bedside.

"The disease is called the Cold Throat sickness."

Azula furrowed her thin brows in confusion. She'd never heard of such a disease.

"And its um…" The doctor everted his odd green eyes. "The disease its… well-"

"Just spit it out already." Mai, Azula's ebony haired friend commanded as she came into the doorway. A small black cup rested in her thin hands, the smoke coming off the liquid's surface circling the girl's pale face.

The anxious doctor placed a hand on the side of his head and bit his lower lip. Those deep green eyes stared at the wall adjacent to Azula's bed, giving Mai no reply. For a few long seconds they lingered there before slowly making their way back to the three Fire Nation girls.

"Well the disease," He than shut his eyes as if it pained him to speak the next few words, "…originated in the Water Nation."

"What!" Azula screamed, suddenly bolting up so quickly she couldn't see straight. A sudden rush of pain than filled her entire head causing her to cry out. She grabbed the sides of her head and clenched her eyes shut. She felt like vomiting.

"You can't be serious." Mai demanded, taking a step towards the shivering doctor. The cup she had previously held in her hands lay shattered at her feet, the tea it'd held lay ruining the floor. Her small dark eyes were opened wide with shock, her expression filled with so much emotion it looked unnatural on her. Her shivering voice lost its icy monotonous tone as she spoke. Mai just couldn't look any less like herself at that moment.

"But-but Azula's Fire Nation." Ty Lee whimpered, holding her small hands to her chest. Her lower lip was trembling, the tears in her gray eyes glistening in the soft candlelight.

"I'm very sorry." The doctor replied, holding his hands behind his back. "We are trying to find a cure at this moment." He directed his gaze back to the cold hard floor. "And the disease is only contagious in the time before the victim begins showing symptoms. So we… uh… can't catch it…"

The doctor than began to leave- it seemed with his heart in his stomach -as a deafening silence filled the emptiness in the room. Mai and Ty Lee followed his quick footsteps with sad, unblinking eyes. Any hope they had possessed had been completely destroyed. Any trace of happiness or joy had been painfully stolen.

For once in their lives, the two Fire Nation girls resembled the other so much. Always they had been so different, so opposite, but now the same expression was painted on their faces. The same feeling resided in their souls. To Azula, they had never seemed more alike.

Suddenly, a small sniffle came from Ty Lee.

"Azula?" She asked quietly.

The ill princess raised her head in reply.

A single tear ran down the brunette's cheek, "I love you." The words came out in a small whisper, her voice broken by tiny sobs.

The spoiled princess answered this by everting her golden eyes.


	2. Recollections

**Disclaimer:** Don't own. 

**Note:** Well hopefully this chapter's better. Oh yeah, DS since this is dedicated to you, if you see a part in here that you think should be rewritten, just say so, and tell me how. I'll redo it, cuz I don't feel this chapter's too good. I don't know, well read and review!

**Red Love  
****Chapter 2: Recollections**

They say that right before you die your life flashes before your eyes.

Azula wondered if she'd been dying for the past two hours. Because through this time she'd been denied sleep she lay remembering, reliving past moments in her life.

She shut her golden eyes, to keep out the darkness and gazed upon the young faces of Mai and Ty Lee. She allowed the sounds of their laughter to fill her ears ao she wouldn't have to listen to the noisy silence of the night.

Slowly however, this short memory drifted from her thoughts and an image of her beautiful young brother flashed behind her eyes. Just a hint of a smile crossed his expression as he ran up to a woman who only existed as a memory. She, of course smiled a very beautiful smile to her son and spoke his name. Zuko. Azula had made a silent promise that day to burn Zuko's arm.

She hated it. He was always with her. Always smiling at her. Always holding her. And she was always with him. She was always kind to him.

But she wasn't kind to Azula. Everything Azula said, her mother disagreed with. With everything Azula did, her mother became angered. Just everything about Azula her mother seemed to find wrong.

And everything about Zuko, or Zuzu, seemed to be right.

Even though he wasn't the prodigy. Even though he was the weaker one. She still seemed to find him better.

And Azula hated it.

Her soul hungered for that love, that gentleness. Her soul hungered for that woman's attention, for her protection. Not that she needed protecting, she only desired the promise of it. She helplessly craved the sound of her mother's kind words directed towards her and not always toward Zuko. She just wanted to know her mother loved her. To know that she wasn't really considered the "bad child".

But she was never allowed to have what she so helplessly desired. She was forever denied the only thing she truly wanted.

And so Zuko had to pay.

Because he was the only one she dared touch while the palm of her hand held a bright, bloodthirsty flame. Because he was the one who took, who stole their mother's affection. And throughout the years, Azula forgot the love she had had for her older brother. She lost it somewhere in the farthest corner of her mind, where it lay to grow cobwebs, never to be found again.

Suddenly Azula gave a powerful cough, one that forced her to sit upright. Immidiatly it was followed by so many others, each one feeling like a punch to the inside of her chest. Once she was finished, the ebony-haired teenager shook her head gently- as to not give herself another headache -and layed herself back down.

Another memory then made itself into her thoughts. The day her mother vanished. As Azula remembered, she awoke very early that moroning, maybe at three or four. And she just knew something was wrong. A feeling of change, of difference settled in the darkness surounding her.

Azula remembered pulling the blood red covers from her thin body very slowly and exiting her room. She walked through the long hallways, looking as if to find something and soon found herself in her parent's doorway.

Hesitanlty, she took a few steps inside. Something was wrong. Her parent's weren't in bed.

She continued her search, a few minutes later discovering her father in her grandfather's room.

"Father?" She had called. "What are you doing in here?"

"Azula?" He answered. "What are you doing awake? Never mind." He quickly added before she could respond.

Immidiatly she felt one of his rough hands upon her softer one. He slowly picked it up.

"Azula, I need you to do something for me."

She nodded and felt him place something in her hand. Glancing downward, she saw it was a golden cup.

"Go melt this, but not in here. If you do this I'l have it made into a prety necklace for you."

Azula nodded. "Where's mom?" She asked.

Her father put his head down. " I-I don't know. No one does. We can't find her. It doesn't matter. And your grandfather is dead."

Azula was a little surprised, but she quickly left to do what she was told. She ran over to her parent's room and sat upon the big bed, waiting.

The princess was so sure her mother would return. And so she waited.

But hours passed. So many long, long hours. And when the sun began to rise she knew it.

Her mother was never coming home.

And that confused the princess. That upset her. Her mom had left her, abandoned her. How could she? Azula figured she probably really didn't love her.

Immidiatly Azula had blinked, feeling her eyes wet. A single tear then escaped one of her eyes and ran down her soft cheek.

But this caused her to remember something. How earlier in the week Zuko had shed tears and their father had scolded him, yelling that he was weak.

Instantly Azula wiped the tears from her little eyes. She would not be called weak. She would not be weak. And she would show her father how strong she was by not crying through such a tragedy.

Immidiatly Azula took in a deep breath and raised her head up high. She was going to go and rub this in Zuko's face.

Azula closed her eyes as she returned from this memory. At times she still wondered where her mother was, and if she was even alive. But she told herself it didn't matter.

The next memory that came to her was the day her brother was exiled from the Fire Nation. She recalled that her Uncle Iroh had given her the news. She had turned her thirteen-year-old head away, rolling her eyes. "Leave it to Zuko to get himself exiled." Was how she replied.

She hadn't cared one bit.

Her angered father forced her to attend her brother's departure however. And of course it bored her. All Zuko did was say his goodbyes. But then there was _one_ moment that failed to bore her.

It was the moment Zuko emerged from those brick red doors. Azula almost gasped, the sight of him without his bandages caught her off guard. She almost didn't recognize her beautiful brother underneath that hideous scar.

And then there was the moment he approached her. Azula could perfectly picture that look upon his face. How he held his newly- almost -shaved head slightly downward, his golden eyes staring straight into hers, giving a light glare. That huge red scar circling his left eye, the flame shape stretching beyond his ear.

Azula just couldn't believe that that was her little Zuzu.

When he finally stopped before her though she could see him. She could see the overwhelming despair hiding so well beneath his cold expression. And by gazing into those eyes of his she could se how lost and confused he was.

She almost pitied him. Almost.

"Well good-bye Azula, my baby sister." He finally spoke.

She laughed. Lightly.

"Well good riddance… Zuzu." She laughed again, delighted when his frown deepened. She just loved to see him suffer.

"And you know," She began, giving him a playfully evil smile, "you're throne is mine now. Because you're never gonna find the Avatar. He's dead. So I'm going to be the next Fire Lordess."

She'd laughed in his face afterwards and that was the last time she saw him in three years.

And now he looked so different. So dirty, so angry, so much older. To her, he resembled an Earth Nation peasant. And surprisingly, she didn't like that. It meant the dirty streets of the Earth Kingdom had taken, had stolen him from her and their family. He'd even cut off his topknot to prove it.

And that succeeded in angering a small part of her. She wasn't one hundred percent sure why, but just the thought that he was trying to run away from her like their mother had so many years ago angered her. She wanted to make him a part of her life again. She wanted to bring him back like she had Mai and Ty Lee.

She hated to admit it out loud, but… the smallest part of her still loved her Zuzu.

She always had, but saying it sounded so weak. Because that's just what he was. Weak. And Azula wanted everyone to know her as strong.

So the torture continued.

All the anger that would have otherwise have been locked up inside her to burn her soul was let out on him.

The anger from when she made mistakes, the anger from knowing her mother favored Zuko, from the knowledge that her mother was gone. And like empathy, he felt her anger with the burns and cuts that covered his arms and legs.

Wait, Azula thought, interrupting her memories, of course he wants to get away. She thought n realization, All I can promise him is negativity. Its my fault…

She then immediately tried to empty her mind of thought. Tried to tell herself it didn't matter. That she didn't care. That it was just Zuko, the boy she enjoyed hurting. The one she should never care about. She needed to clear her mind of such emotions.

She tried. But something, some little part of her mind was screaming. Screaming that she was a liar. Repeating the smallest three words she had spoken so long ago.

'I love you.'

It repeated them over and over like a chant. It was the smallest part of her, operating as if it were something separate from her. And Azula wished it was, because at least then she would be able to silence it with a fiery fist. But it wasn't. It was her. It was the part of her she forced to the very back of her mind so she could forget it existed. So she would be able to bend lightning and become strong.

But now it was loose. It freed itself with the memories she was reviewing. And it was taking over.

'Its my fault.' That's what it cried. Over and over. And she wanted it to stop, she couldn't be dealing with these kinds of emotions. Not if she wanted to be strong.

'Its my fault.' Again and again. And she knew it was so true, she knew how right these words were. But she didn't want to hear it. She only desired to ignore it and pretend she didn't care. To just go back to normal.

But the part of her just kept on screaming, refusing to be ignored. And the princess began to feel the unfamiliar sensation of tears fill the corners of her eyes.

She wanted to fight it, but she knew she already lost.

"I love you Zuko."

Such a tiny whisper left her blood red lips.

She immediately realized what she'd done. She knew it was her fault.

Instantly a stinging feeling of remorse filled her empty heart. She knew what she'd done. And she knew her brother would laugh at her death, that he'd spit upon her grave. And it was all her fault.

"Why did I do those things to you?" She asked. "I love you my Zuko."

Just then she closed her golden brown eyes as two thin trails of tears began to run down her light cheeks for the first time in too long.

"I love you so much."


	3. Rumors

**Disclaimer:** Do not own.

**Note:** Sorry it took so long to get this chapter up, just been so busy... this one's kinda short, but the next one'll be longer. It might take a bit to get the next one up too, okay? Well, read and review!

**Red Love**

**Chapter 3: Rumors**

Prince Zuko, or Li as he was forced to call himself now, lay upon his slightly uncomfortable mattress, with his golden eyes to the ceiling as thoughts of the past troubled his mind.

He thought of how Jet acted just a few days before. How his once trusting and caring eyes had lit up with so much anger, so much hatred and hurt as he accused Zuko and his Uncle of being Fire Nation. He thought of how at first Jet had really admired him and his abilities and had thought a lot of him as a person. And how all these feelings had vanished in but a split second as he found out that Zuko was what he'd been fighting against his whole life.

It wasn't fair.

Suddenly a small creaking interrupted Zuko's thoughts. He raised his head in reply as the front door gradually opened, revealing his Uncle Iroh on the other side.

However, instead of the cheery, humming man that had exited the home a few moments earlier, a silent Iroh entered, with his eyes to the floor, his shoulders slouched in a disheartening way.

"Is something wrong Uncle?" Zuko questioned, immediately sitting himself up.

The elderly man raised his eyes to his nephew, but then immediately led them back down to the floor, "Our newest neighbors have brought with them news from the outside world." He spoke softly.

"Good or bad?" Zuko asked, though he knew it was bad.

"I'm not sure." Was his reply, as he shut the door behind him. "Its just news."

Immediately the scarred prince raised an eyebrow, sitting up further.

"What is it?" He asked.

"Well your sister Azula…" Iroh's voice trailed off and he slowly made his way to the stove.

"My sister Azula what?" Zuko asked impatiently as a million possibilities ran through his head.

"Azula had come down with a disease over a week ago." Iroh extinguished the small flame upon the stove with bending.

"And what about that?"

Iroh then turned back to his nephew, "Zuko," he spoke, using his real name, "Azula is dead."

Zuko blinked in response.

"What?"

"Azula's dead." Iroh repeated.

Zuko could only stare back, responding again with silence.

_What?_ He repeated in his mind. _What?_

Had he heard right? Was this a joke?

His younger sister couldn't really be dead, could she? She could easily defeat guards that had had a lifetime of training when she was only ten. And when she was five-years-old, she could make teenagers wet their pants. People like that didn't just die, did they? Azula was just too strong, to fierce. She always seemed so untouchable, unbreakable. Could she really be dead?

"Zuko?"

The ebony haired teen glanced upward. "Uncle, is this the truth?" He asked, half expecting his Uncle to burst out laughing, exclaiming that he couldn't believe Zuko had fallen for it.

However, Iroh's solemn expression did not change. Instead, he nodded slowly.

Again Zuko blinked and turned his eyes downward.

Azula was _dead_? His baby sister was really _dead_? Really gone forever? She had really been killed?

Zuko placed a hand on the back of his head.

_Azula is dead_, he thought to himself _My sister is dead. She's gone._

But no matter how many times he told himself, no matter how many times he attempted to force it in his mind, he still couldn't believe it. It just felt too unreal. Too much like a fantasy.

_My sister is dead. She's gone._ He shouted in his mind. _Azula is dead. She's dead. …Dead._

And it was odd. Every time he had repeated it, he'd felt no reaction. No remorse. Nothing. He felt so numb, so empty. No emotion dared fill his senses and Zuko didn't understand this.

This was his _sister_. _His sister_. He'd spent his _life_ with her. And she just _died_. How could he _not feel_ anything?

But then, at the same time, how was this supposed to feel?

Was he supposed to be happy? There was no more sociopath girl to run from anymore. No longer was there a sibling to be better then him and rub it in his face. No one was left to be favored over him. The throne had to be his for sure now.

But he couldn't be happy. Azula was his sister. His baby sister. And even though they shared a tumultuous relationship, Zuko could recall moments of pure love and tenderness between them. Like the nights he'd held her in his protective embrace, to shield her from the horrors that had plagued her dreams. And the few moments when she had, in secret of course, bandaged the bloody wounds she had given him just moments before. He remembered those times when she would look up at him, her golden eyes screaming her remorse so that even though she never apologized, he occasionally knew she meant to. And even though she had laughed in his face the day of his banishment, he had kind of missed her when they were separated.

So did that mean he was supposed to be sad?

"Zuko!"

Instantly, the young fire bender's attention was snapped back into reality. "Huh?" He asked, jerking his head towards his Uncle.

"Are you okay?" Iroh asked, placing a hand upon Zuko's left shoulder.

Zuko blinked, offering no immediate reply. Was he okay? He led his golden eyes to the ground, thinking for a moment.

He'd just received news that his sweet little baby sister, who'd spent the last few months hunting him down like an animal, was dead. He'd learned that the girl that had so gently told him she loved him in the dead of the night, and then the very next day had dug her cat claws in to his pale skin in till red dripped from the would, so he would appear weak and incapable in their father's eyes, was gone. The woman with the malicious smile and the remorse filled eyes, his sister, was dead.

So was he really okay?

Zuko led his eyes back up, meeting Iroh's sun-colored orbs.

"I don't know Uncle." Was the only clear response he could give.


End file.
